Texan ENT - May 2020

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CAN A DAITH PIERCING REALLY STOP MIGRAINES?

Summertime is synonymous with many childhood experiences: hours splashing in the pool, sleepaway camp, and snow cones, to name a few. A quintessential summer destination that isn’t as common these days is the drive-in theater, yet many childhood memories are built on this little bit of nostalgia. The first drive-in theater opened in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey. At the time, films cost 25 cents per person, plus 25 cents per car, and drive-ins usually got movies in the second run, after they’d shown at indoor theaters. The trend started off slow, but by the ‘50s, Americans had fully embraced the outdoor theater experience. The ‘80s brought a charismatic Michael J. Fox to audiences in “Back to the Future,” and shortly after, “The Sandlot” hit the big screen and gave us lines that we’d quote for the next decade (“You’re killin’ me, Smalls!”). As of 2018, USA Today estimated that only about 330 drive-in theaters still exist in the United States. Fortunately, we still have a wonderful drive-in theater in our area! The Blue Starlite Drive-in Theater in Austin shows everything from childhood favorites to cult classics all year long. Visit BlueStarliteDrivein.com for tickets and showtimes. Not able to make it out to the drive-in? Your family can enjoy the outdoor movie experience without having to leave the backyard. Start with a projector. If you don’t have one, they are readily available to purchase at most big-box stores. For playing the movie, you’ll need a laptop and streaming service or a DVD or Blu-ray player. You’ll connect these devices to your projector through an HDMI port. As long as you’re not broadcasting to the whole neighborhood, stereo or computer speakers should be just fine, but you can also opt for a Bluetooth speaker that will give your audio a big boost. Next, you’ll need a flat surface to display the movie. A plain, white bedsheet makes a good screen, or you can make your own with white fabric from craft stores or online. Cushions, blankets, and outdoor hanging lights add a fun touch to your cinema. Just be sure to turn the lights off before the movie begins — and silence those cellphones! Once your setup is complete, select your movie, get the popcorn popping, and enjoy some movie magic right in your backyard.

What You Need to Know Every 10 seconds in the U.S., someone walks into an emergency room complaining that their head hurts. Often, these people are suffering from a migraine, which is a neurological disorder that causes debilitating headaches, dizziness, and nausea. According to the Migraine Research Foundation, migraines are

the third most prevalent illness in the world, so odds are you’ve either had one or known someone who has.

Migraines can make it hard to hold down a job and keep up family obligations, so people who suffer from them are always on the lookout for new treatments. Often, they turn to holistic medicine like acupuncture, essential oils, and diet changes. In the last few years, another treatment has become more popular: daith piercings. The daith is the smallest fold of cartilage in your ear, located where the outer and inner ear meet. Though daith piercings are tricky to do, they’ve gained traction on social media. According to many acupuncturists, the daith is home to a key pressure point for pain relief. By piercing the daith, the theory goes, migraine sufferers can move beyond acupuncture and get permanent relief. But does this actually work? According to the American Migraine Foundation and Healthline, the scientific evidence is inconclusive. In 2017, Frontiers in Neurology published a case study that found that one patient’s migraines improved after he got a daith piercing. However, the researchers stopped short of recommending the piercing to migraine sufferers because of its potential risk of infection and the possibility that the improvements in this single case were due to a placebo effect. Still, the daith pressure point does exist, and there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that the piercing helps. Euphoric stories like this one from Keisha Stokes, who shared her experience on a medical blog, give hope to migraine sufferers who have tried everything else: “I have had the piercing for just under 30 days, and I have had one severe migraine since then, but one as opposed to 3–6 is pretty fair in my book. I am not a medical expert by far, but I can say that at this very moment, I wish I had known about this piercing long ago.” If you’re considering a daith piercing, just be sure to weigh the risks before you commit. Photo Credit: Carnivoredaddy, Wikimedia commons

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